No Jail for Fraud Charges Totalling $600,000

Astor Legal last week appeared at Young Local Court to represent a client who was facing serious fraud charges totalling approximately $600,000.

Our client was a bank employee at the time of the offences. In the course of her job she committed a number of fraudulent transactions between 2013 and 2016. Throughout the three years a number of persons raised their suspicions but she was able to obfuscate the truth.

Eventually her offending was discovered and she was confronted. At this stage she confessed and voluntarily handed herself into police before an investigation had commenced.

Ultimately she was charged with 16 counts of dishonestly obtain financial advantage by deception amounting to roughly $600,000.

Initially our client was represented by two other law firms before coming to us. She told us that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and that she believed this was largely responsible for the offending. Our specialist fraud lawyers instructed one of our forensic psychiatrists to prepare a report.

This report set out that our client did not appreciate the moral wrongfulness of her actions at the time of the offending.

This – in combination with persuasive advocacy – ultimately resulted in our client avoiding a term of full-time imprisonment as she was sentenced to an Intensive Corrections Order (ICO) for three years. This was an exceptional result as generally fraud offences totalling over $100,000 result in full-time imprisonment.

Our client and her family were overjoyed with the result as she is able to enjoy her freedom.